


Roses On Your Grave

by RavenTempestShadowhunter



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Drinking to Cope, Eating Disorders, F/M, Recreational Drug Use, Self Harm, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1983912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenTempestShadowhunter/pseuds/RavenTempestShadowhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo is ten years old when his sister Bianca dies. As the years go on he gets worse and worse, falling apart at the seams, and the only person who seems to notice is his best friend Percy. Until a new girl comes. Extended version of Without You By My Side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fifth Grade

**Author's Note:**

> This is the extended version of Without You By My Side. It has a chapter for each grade Nico goes through (except eleventh, which is split into three chapters). If you haven't read Without You By My Side, you don't have to, but you might want to.
> 
> Jack Willsbee and Mrs. Winters are both my own characters

The minute he'd opened the package Nico had decided that the Hades statue was his favorite. Bianca had sent it from Rome, she was there on an exchange trip. She'd been gone since Christmas but she was coming home that day. That was why his father wasn't there, he had to go pick up Bianca. They would be home soon, and Nico had made his sister a painting in art that day. He wasn't a particularly good artist, he knew, but he decided that no one could mess up throwing bright green paint on a black piece of construction paper, although his teacher had yelled at him that it wasn't art.

There was a knock at the door, and Nico looked up. He wasn't sure who would be knocking at their door at five o'clock in the afternoon. He hadn't ordered pizza, Percy was at swim practice, and Nico didn't have any other friends.

_Dad must have forgotten his key_ , he decided as he stood up and went to the door.

It was a lady wearing a police officer's uniform. “Hi, is your dad home?”

Nico shook his head. “He went to pick up my sister. She's coming home from Rome today.”

The lady's face twisted into an expression that Nico couldn't quite label. “Bianca.”

“Yup.”

“And you must be Nico.”

Nico nodded. “Do you need something?”

The lady cleared her throat and knelt down on one knee. “Your sister isn't coming home,” she said gently.

Nico felt cold. “What do you mean?”

The lady looked sad. “The plane from Rome that your sister was on crashed. Bianca didn't survive.”

Nico shook his head. “You're wrong. My dad would have called me.”

“I'm sorry, sweetheart…”

“You're wrong,” Nico interrupted. He was calm, and he wasn't sure why. He should be sad, right? Crying? She'd just told him that his sister was dead. And called him  _sweetheart_ .

She put a hand on his arm but he tore it away and shut the door.

“She was lying,” he whispered to himself. “She had to be.”

He stood there for a few seconds with his hand on the doorknob, his breathing heavy and his heart racing. There was no way that Bianca was dead. His dad would be there any second lugging her suitcase and she'd wrap him in a hug and tell him all about Rome and he'd give her the painting and laugh about what the police officer had said.

But that didn't happen, and after five minutes of standing there staring at the door Nico turned and ran to his room. He tripped and fell on the floor, and when he saw what had tripped him he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

It was the Hades Mythomagic statue. The one from Rome. The last thing Bianca had given him.

Because he knew she was dead, he could feel it, and this just seemed cruel.

He stood up, picked up the statue, and hurled it as hard as he could at the wall. Then he sat down on the bed and stared at the mirror across the room.

He had her eyes and her hair and her pale skin. They both looked like their mother, but she'd died when Nico was three. It seemed cruel, first he lost his mother and now his sister. He wasn't particularly close to his father, so how was he supposed to survive with no other family?

He stood and picked up the Hades statue, running his thumb over the little face and the robes and the skull that the statue held. He looked back up over his shoulder at the mirror and wondered why he wasn't crying, he should be crying, shouldn't he? His sister was dead, he should cry for her. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he cry?

Because he was too numb for that. He felt like he'd been frozen inside, like he'd never feel again.

* * *

 

_How am I going to do this?_ Hades asked himself, turning off the car and staring at the wall of the house in front of him.  _ How do I tell a ten-year-old that his sister is dead? _

He'd gotten to the airport and stood there waiting for an hour before an airport official had come up to him and asked what flight he was waiting for. When he told the young man he swore softly and explained in a gentle tone that that flight had crashed. No one had survived.

Hades had nodded and thanked the young man, and then sat there staring at the floor in shock. For the first fifteen minutes he hadn't thought anything, just stared at the floor and listened to people walking by. Then he'd realized that his ten-year-old son was still at home waiting for him and Bianca and he ran to the bathrooms, locked himself in a stall, and broke down crying.

Twenty minutes later found him driving home.

After sitting in his car and staring at the wall for a few minutes Hades realized that Nico already knew. The man at the airport had said something about sending people home to alert the family. Whoever had been sent to his home would have told Nico.

Hades darted out of his car, panicking. Nico was home alone, and he'd just learned that his sister was dead. What would he do? Would he cry like Hades had? Nico had never cried much, even as a baby. Would he cry for his sister.

“Nico?” Hades called as he closed the door behind him. Nico didn't answer. “Nico?” he called again. He began making his way towards Nico's room. The door was closed. He knocked.

Nico's head turned from the mirror to the door when he heard his father knocking. He sat still for a few seconds, trying to decide what to do. Then he stood up, crossed the room, locked the door, and went back to his bed, the Hades figurine still in his hands. He could hear his father knocking and saying his name and telling him that they needed to talk but he ignored it.

He didn't leave his room until two o'clock the next morning to get food. He stayed in his room all the next day and the day after, and when he finally left he didn't say anything to his father. He walked into the kitchen on Wednesday morning, sat at the table, and poured himself a bowl of cereal. His father sat next to him and they ate in silence.

Nico went back to school the following Monday, a week after Bianca's death, because his father forced him to. Normally he would have walked with Bianca, their schools were right next to each other, but Hades drove him.

“Hey Nico!” his best friend Percy called out when he saw Nico walk in the door. “Where've you been? I thought you were sick or something, but you never get sick, especially not for a whole week…”

Usually Percy's ability to never shut up annoyed Nico, but right now he was glad of it. Percy took another five minutes before he remembered his initial question. “So where were you?”

Nico looked down at his hands and didn't answer.

“Nico?” Percy said, concern lacing his voice. “Is everything okay?”

 _Please please please just start talking again_ , Nico thought. _Everything's easier when you're talking._

But Percy didn't start talking, so Nico just made his way to their classroom with Percy trailing behind him. When they got to their room Percy grabbed Nico's arm and said, “Seriously, Nico, what's wrong?”

Nico glanced around the room, wondering how he was supposed to get out of this, and breathed a sigh of relief when their teacher, Mrs. Winters, walked over to talk to him. Of course he should have known what she wanted to talk about, but at least Nico didn't have to explain to Percy.

“Nico, I was so sorry to hear about your sister,” Mrs. Winters said. “She was a wonderful girl…”

“What happened to Bianca?” Percy interrupted.

Mrs. Winters looked back and forth between Nico and Percy. “You didn't…” she started, then looked at Percy with sad eyes. “Percy, come here please,” she said, leading him away.

A few seconds later Percy dropped his backpack and ran over to Nico. “Why didn't you tell me?” he asked, looking like he was about to cry. He wrapped his arms around Nico in a hug.

The bell rang and they both went to their desks. Mrs. Winters never called on Nico that day, and during lunch and recess people avoided him, except the teachers who came over to give their condolences. Percy stayed by his side all day, and after a few classes he realized that Nico wasn't going to say anything. He stopped asking questions but never left him alone.

* * *

“Hi, Nico, I’m Doctor Willisbee. You can call me Jack.” The therapist his father had made him see had curly brown hair and chocolate brown eyes and looked exactly like Nico thought someone named Jack would look. He was smiling and holding out his hand for Nico to shake, but Nico just nodded and looked at the floor. “Why don't you come in and sit down?” Jack asked, leading Nico over to one of the chairs. Jack sat on the chair across from Nico's with a pad and pen.

“Tell me about your sister,” Jack asked, but Nico just looked at the wall behind Jack and said nothing. He'd started talking again, about two weeks after coming back to school, but the school guidance counselor had suggested to Hades that Nico go to a few therapy sessions.

“Okay, how about we start with your mother. Can you tell me about her?”

Nico pulled the Hades figurine out of his pocket and started playing with it.

“What's that?” Jack asked. Nico didn't look up. Jack sighed. “Nico, I’m here to help you. But I need you to talk to me.”

Nico stood up and went to the corner of the room. He crouched down and hugged his knees to his chest and stared at the floor.

Jack kept trying to talk to him, even going so far as to come sit in front of him, but Nico just stared at the floor or the ceiling or sometimes the chairs.  _What did I do?_ he  wondered.  _What did I do wrong?_

 


	2. Sixth Grade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in this chapter is Forgiven by Within Temptation. It's an amazing song. If you're an emotional person, it might make you cry.

“Nico?” he heard from the kitchen. Nico groaned quietly. He didn't want to talk to his father. He knew they were having a guest for dinner, Hades had told him this morning, and he knew that it was his father's girlfriend. Hades thought he was being secretive, but Nico knew. He'd heard them talking on the phone the other night. And he really didn't want to meet his father's girlfriend, Persephone, her name was. He especially didn't want to imagine what the two of them were getting up to the nights when his father was away. He'd managed to subdue those images until now, but once he knew what Persephone looked like he knew he wouldn't be able to push them out of his mind. He'd much prefer to go lie in his room with his headphones on and pretend that there wasn't a huge pile of homework waiting for him.

But he couldn't avoid them, so he dropped his backpack by the door and went into the kitchen.

His father was sitting at the table next to a woman. She had black hair and sparkling black eyes, but all Nico could think was that her eyes didn't sparkle nearly as much as his mother's had. They weren't the same color, either; Persephone's eyes were black, as black as night, with what looked like little gold flakes in them, although Nico wasn't close enough to tell. Maria's had been dark dark dark brown, so that they looked like the darkest of dark chocolate. Persephone's were gorgeous, but Maria's had been warm and beautiful. Nico had his mother's eyes.

“Nico, this is Persephone,” Hades said, smiling.

Nico nodded. “Hi.” His voice was emotionless, like his face.

Persephone smiled, too. “Hi,” she said, sticking out her hand for him to shake. He stared at her and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Hades cleared his throat and gave Nico a pointed look. Persephone noticed it and laughed. Her laugh was beautiful, but to Nico it sounded like nails on a chalk board. His mother's laugh had been like honey. Bianca had gotten his mother's laugh. Nico couldn't remember what his laugh sounded like. It had been so long since he'd laughed.

“Don't worry, I’m used to it. I’m a school teacher,” she told Nico, then turned back to his father. “A lot of kids aren't very receptive on the first day of school.”

Hades laughed with her, but he was looking at Nico, his eyes begging. Nico's eyes were like stone. “I have homework,” he mumbled, and rushed back to his room.

Hades sighed. “He seems like a sweet boy,” Persephone remarked.

“He is. Once you get past the not-so-sweet part.” But Hades hadn't seen the sweet part of Nico in a while. Actually, he hadn't much of Nico in a while. He was usually at work, and Nico was usually at school.

“Like a nut.” Persephone laughed. “You have to get past the hard shell to find the good part. How old is he?”

“Eleven.”

Persephone hummed and nodded. “Sixth grade?”

“Yeah,” Hades said, and stood up. “Dinner?”

Persephone laughed again. “It's four o'clock!”

Hades gave her a smile. “But by the time we're finished it will be seven.”

“I'm pretty sure it doesn't take three hours to make spaghetti.”

“It does when I’m cooking.”

They laughed, and Hades led Persephone to the cooking area.

Nico sighed and put his headphones over his ears. He didn't want to hear them laughing together. Didn't his father remember Maria? Why would he choose someone else? Especially someone like Persephone. She was so…fake. She was a teacher, of course she was fake. Nico had never met a teacher who wasn't fake. Fake smiles, fake enthusiasm. He had thought once he got to middle school the teachers would stop being fake. Or maybe it was just him. They thought he couldn't hear them, but he could. He was never Nico, he was always _Bianca di Angelo's younger brother_. And that would have been fine, except he wasn't _Bianca's younger brother_ because she'd been such a wonderful student and they expected him to do just as wonderfully. No, he was _Bianca's younger brother_ because she'd died in seventh grade and they felt sorry for him. And of course they had him all figured out because that's what they did, right? They figured kids out. He was just a messed up little boy to them and he could see the pity in their eyes and he _hated_ it. He hated _them_.

He hadn't even been paying attention to what he was listening to until a familiar piano intro started. Normally he skipped this one, in fact he hadn't heard the whole thing in months. But today he let it play, listening to the words as tears ran down his cheeks.

_Couldn't save you from the start, loved you so it hurt my soul._ It was about Bianca. He didn't know how they'd known and maybe it hadn't been written for Bianca but it was about her. It was everything he wanted to say to her.

_Here I am left in silence. You gave up the fight, you left me behind, all that's done's forgiven. You'll always be mine, I know deep inside, all that's done's forgiven._ He contemplated throwing his iPod across the room, but he couldn't make his arms move. He hated the song, he hated the singer, he hated Bianca for leaving him. But he couldn't hate Bianca, because if he hated Bianca then what did he have left? A father and his father's girlfriend. Great.

_I've been so lost since you've gone. Why not me before you? Why did fate deceive me? Everything turned out so wrong._ “Why did you leave me in silence?” His mouth moved unconsciously with the words as tears blurred his vision.

When his father opened the door to his room he found Nico asleep on his bed. If he'd looked closer he would have seen tear tracks running down Nico's face, but he didn't, just shut the door behind him.

* * *

Hades proposed two months later, which Nico thought was ridiculous, they'd only been dating for eight months. But he didn't say anything, just tried to be happy for them. And for once he really did try, tried to think of all the reasons why this was a good thing, tried to smile at them when they told him, and for a few minutes he managed it.

But the wedding night came too soon, really, they should have waited more than a month after the proposal. It was a beautiful ceremony, at least that's what the lady sitting next to Nico kept whispering to him. She smelled like old person sweat and cat pee and mints and he spent the entire time trying not to gag, and so missed the ceremony all together, not that he was upset. He was sure there would be plenty of photos.

After the wedding Nico was assaulted by people saying congratulations, and he wasn't sure why because he wasn't the one who just got married. Do people really congratulate you on getting a new stepmother?

When he finally escaped the well-wishers he knew he couldn't go to the reception, he'd die. Dancing and smiling for hours, and after the way that lady had smelled he didn't think he'd be able to stomach any wedding cake. Although he had to laugh at the ornament on top of the cake. Instead of the traditional bride and groom standing next to each other, the bride was pulling the groom by the collar. Which, now that he thought about it, might have been exactly what happened.

So Nico left and wandered around the streets for a while. He contemplated going to Percy's, but he didn't want to have to tell to his best friend why he wasn't at his father's wedding. He told Percy just about everything, but what Percy didn't know Nico wouldn't have to explain.

So he wandered until he found himself at the docks. He'd been gone for nearly an hour and a half now, but he couldn't imagine his father or Persephone worrying about him. So he sat down on the docks with his feet dangling over the water. There was no moon and the docks weren't used anymore so there were no lights and the water was dark. Nico liked it. It was quiet.

He put his hands into his jacket pockets and felt something. Pulling it out he realized he'd pocketed one of the matchbooks they'd used that day in science. He opened the matchbook. It was full, it must have been one of the new ones. He struck a match, and it blazed to life. He liked how it looked against the water. He dropped it, and it sizzled as the water extinguished it.

He lit another and dropped it into the water. Absently he continued lighting and dropping the matches, watching them burn and then sizzle out.

Would his father come? Would Hades notice that his son was missing, or would he be too excited with his new bride. Come to think of it, did Nico even want to be at home tonight? Or had they booked a hotel room somewhere? Because really, Nico didn't want to be home for  _that_ .

Maybe Percy's mom would let him stay the night, just to be safe. But no, he was staying with them for three weeks while Hades and Persephone went on their honeymoon. He couldn't impose on them for even longer.

He'd finished lighting all the matches and was staring at the empty matchbook, contemplating dropping it into the water as well, when he heard the characteristic shouting and laughing of drunk teenagers on a Friday night. He'd had a run in with a group of drunk teenagers a few months ago, which had resulted in a sprained ankle and a nasty cut on his cheek, and Nico had no desire to repeat that. So he ran from the docks and away from the direction of the voices and didn't stop running until he'd gotten home.

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when he got there. Hades and Persephone weren't home yet and Nico assumed they were either still at the reception (he'd heard those things could last a long time) or they really had booked a hotel room and not told him. Actually they might have told him, he rarely listened to them. But really, who would leave an eleven year old at home alone?

He poured himself a glass of water and went to his room to drink it in case they  _were_ at the reception and they came home before he'd gone to bed.

He didn't find out where they'd been because he didn't leave his room until Monday morning.

 


	3. Seventh Grade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Micheal, Ms. Hill, Caroline, Dr. Jack Willis, and Dr. Toni Murray are all original characters.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter deals with eating disorders.

It was mocking him. It was laughing. He could hear it, little high pitched laugh, smoky, sort of, like it'd been burned. He lifted it up and checked the bottom, then dropped it back down. Of course. It had been burned. But what could he expect from school cafeteria pizza?

It'd been over a month now since he'd eaten anything. He picked up the pizza and took a bite. He chewed for what felt like forever, but it tasted like cardboard. He could feel the cheese and the sauce and the bread but it just tasted like cardboard. For the first few weeks he'd tried to force himself to eat, but now it was just once in a while that he tried. He hadn't tried at all last week and now he felt like he had to. But he just couldn't eat it.

He tried to remember the last time he'd really eaten anything. Christmas morning, when Persephone had made muffins. She couldn't cook, not to save her life, but she always tried during the holidays. This time she'd made peppermint muffins, trying to get into the holiday spirit. Nico didn't want to know where she'd gotten a recipe for peppermint muffins, or where she'd gotten the idea to dye them. She'd tried to do a marbled batter, like a red and green swirl, but she'd mixed it too much and ended up with a sort of puce color. They looked horrible and tasted worse, but they still tasted like cardboard to Nico. He'd meant to just say that he wasn't hungry but his father had given him a look and insisted that he eat one. He'd stomached half of it before he felt like he was going to be sick (he was almost positive that it wasn't the cooking, just whatever was making it so he couldn't eat, although he had some doubts). Then he'd managed to hide the rest of the muffin in his pocket and two hours later he'd flushed it down the toilet.

He took another bite of the pizza and chewed on it for a few minutes before swallowing. Hell, he already felt sick. Maybe that was just the smell and the sight of all the grease on the pizza. Good God, it was _orange_ , and he could have licked it all off with his tongue.

Did this count as an eating disorder? They'd talked about eating disorders in health class last semester, just like they'd talked about them in sixth grade. He knew that anorexia meant that you weren't eating, but did it count as anorexia if he wasn't trying to get thin? He looked down at his arms. He was quite thin enough, he knew that if he'd lifted up his shirt (not something he would do in a school cafeteria) and sucked in his stomach he'd be able to count each and every one of his ribs. So did it count as anorexia if he just couldn't eat?

* * *

Percy watched Nico sitting alone from across the cafeteria. He'd tried to sit with Nico at the beginning of the year, but after a while it had become clear that Nico wanted to be alone. He was worried for his friend, they barely talked anymore but he still considered Nico his best friend.

Ever since Bianca's death Nico had been getting steadily worse. Percy didn't want to say anything for fear of losing Nico's trust (he didn't even know if he had it anymore) but if Nico got worse then Percy would go to the guidance counselor. Or a teacher, or maybe Nico's father. But he hadn't seen Hades in a while, would Hades even recognize him?

“Percy,” he heard, and turned to see Annabeth snapping her fingers at him.

He blinked. “Sorry. Colosseum in Rome, I’m listening. Keep going.”

* * *

Nico wasn't going to finish this pizza, he knew that. He stood up. His head spun for a few seconds, but he was used to it. That had been happening for the past three weeks. He stood there until it had passed, then picked up the pizza plate and went to the trash.

His head was still spinning and he felt a little dizzy, but he ignored it. He only had five minutes left of lunch anyway, and it was better to get to class early than to have to fight past the crowds of people leaving the cafeteria.

He was almost out the doors when his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

* * *

Annabeth was still talking, something about gladiators and lions, but Percy had tuned her out a while ago. When he looked back up at Nico's table, Nico was gone.

Percy scanned the cafeteria, but Nico wasn't there. He must have gone up to class.

He was about to turn back to Annabeth and try to listen when he saw a black lump on the floor near the door.  _ Oh my God, _ he thought,  _ is that Nico? _

He stood up, throwing, “Bathroom,” over his shoulder as an explanation, and went as fast as he could towards the black lump without attracting attention. When he was a few feet away from the lump, he saw that it was Nico. He fell to his knees and turned his friend over. Nico's eyes were half-open, but they only focused on Percy for a second. “Nico,” Percy said, panic filling his voice. He turned around and called to the first teacher he saw. “Ms. Hill!” he called. Ms. Hill turned around and stood up quickly.

“What happened?” she asked. They were attracting a crowd.

“I don't know. I was walking over and he was just lying here.” Percy tried to swallow his tears. “Is he okay?”

“Micheal,” Ms. Hill said to a nearby boy. “Go get the nurse.”

Micheal nodded and rushed out of the cafeteria.

* * *

Nico could hear the people saying his name, and he thought he saw Percy above him. Green eyes, black hair, a worried look. But there were too many people and soon he couldn't focus and Percy became part of the multicolored blur that was slowly going dark. His head was heavy, he didn't have the strength to move it. How many people were there, anyway? It seemed like there were hundreds of them, thousands, millions even. They were like birds, all calling his name. _Nico, Nico, Nico_. He would have covered his ears if he'd been able to move his arms. They were coming closer, the green eyes were their leaders. He knew those green eyes. He knew them. They were Percy's eyes. But Percy wasn't a bird…

_Am I dying?_ he wondered as the blackness descended on the birds. Briefly he thought about Bianca, about his mother, and he realized that he wasn't afraid. And that scared him more than anything in the world, the fact that he wasn't afraid to die. Because now he knew just how far gone he was.

The last thing he saw before the blackness took all the birds away was the pair of shining green eyes.

* * *

Nico opened his eyes slowly. He could feel a prickling sensation on his arms, but his head was too heavy to raise it and see what was on his arms.

He remembered the cafeteria, the pizza that he hadn't been able to eat, and collapsing. He remembered the birds and the green eyes. But he didn't remember anything else, just the darkness. So where was he now?

Somewhere to his right he heard someone crying, but he didn't turn his head to look. He just closed his eyes again and willed the darkness to come back, because he'd rather feel nothing, remember nothing, than to feel this. It felt like everything was crushing him. He could feel his chest moving up and down, so why didn't he feel like he could breathe? The bright lights in the room hurt his eyes, even through his closed eyelids. He remembered wondering if he was dying, and as he lay there in an unfamiliar bed with a prickling sensation on his arms and bright lights and a feeling like he was being crushed he wondered why he hadn't died, and for a brief second he wished he had.

He opened his eyes again when he heard a chair scraping the floor, and a second later Persephone's face appeared above him. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and he thought it was unfair that she still looked gorgeous even with tear-filled eyes. Most people's eyes looked bloodshot and their faces streaky when they cried, but Persephone just looked like a wet flower. Nico didn't know how, but she did.

For once he couldn't compare her to his mother. He'd never seen his mother cry. She wouldn't be crying now, either. She was stronger than Persephone.

“Nico!” Persephone gasped, and pressed a button next to his bed. He shut his eyes again as her voice shot pain through his head. A few seconds later he heard shoes on a tile floor, but he didn't open his eyes. “He was awake,” he heard Persephone say.

“Nico?” a woman's voice said. He assumed it was a nurse. He felt her put her hand on his shoulder. “Nico, can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes again, but squinted against the bright lights. The nurse had hair so blonde it was almost white, and her eyes were bright green, but darker than Percy's. She smiled at him.

“Hi, Nico, I’m Caroline,” she said. He didn't say anything, just stared at her. “How are you feeling?” He still didn't say anything. He fought off the urge to close his eyes again. Caroline's voice was too loud to his ears, even though he could tell she was speaking quietly. “I'm going to go get a doctor and your father, okay?” She didn't wait for an answer, just patted his shoulder and walked out of the room.

Persephone had put a hand over her mouth, and now she let out a sob. _Why are you crying?_ he thought. _What happened to you? I’m the one in a hospital bed._ But he didn't say anything, just stared up at the ceiling.

He had to stay in the hospital for a week, and went to mandatory therapy the next day. It wasn't Dr. Willis, the one he'd had two years before, it was a woman named Toni Murray and he hated her even more than he'd hated Dr. Willis.

Nico's father took him out of school and he finished seventh grade online.

 


	4. Eighth Grade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amber and Victoria Jennings are original characters.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter deals with self -harm and alcoholism.

Eighth grade. They were the rulers of the school for the next year. At least that's what Percy had been told. He pulled his notebooks out of his bag and stuffed them into his locker. One more year until they were in high school.

Percy scanned to crowd for Annabeth, but he didn't see her. Out of habit he scanned again for Nico, although he didn't expect to see him. Percy hadn't seen his best friend since last year, they hadn't done anything during summer vacation and Nico had been so busy with online school and therapy he hadn't had time for Percy during the school year. At least that's what he told Percy.

He was about to turn back to his locker when he saw a head of black hair near the front doors. He shut his locker and made his way over, trying not to get his hopes up. It wasn't likely that Hades would have let Nico come back to regular school.

But it was Nico.

“Hey Nico!” Percy said as he reached Nico's locker at the same time as Nico.

“Hey,” Nico muttered. He didn't want to talk to Percy, he didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to go to class and hope that no one noticed him. He could already hear them whispering to each other.

“Didn't see you over the summer. What'd you do?”

Nico shrugged. “Not much.”

“How come you didn't come to my birthday party? I called you, didn't Persephone give you the message?”

“Persephone doesn't talk to me if she doesn't have to.” Nico gave up trying to open his locker and started fighting his way through the crowd. Why were there so many people in the halls? Didn't they have anywhere else to go? The library, maybe? Class?

Percy followed close behind him. He didn't try to talk, but Nico felt a bit better knowing that Percy still wanted to be his friend.

“That's the boy who collapsed in the caf last year,” he heard a girl whisper.

“I thought he, like, died or something,” her friend said.

“No, I heard he was on drugs,” a third one replied.

Percy cleared his throat loudly and glared at the three girls, and they hurried off in the opposite direction. As it turned out, being captain of the swim team had its advantages.

But Percy wasn't with him during all of his classes, and when he was alone he sat in the back, listening to people whisper and watching them stare. They thought he didn't notice, but he did, and sometimes he wondered if he really was the freak they made him out to be.

Percy never gave up on him. Admittedly he hung out with Annabeth and Rachel and Luke more than he hung out with Nico, but he made sure to sit with Nico at least once a week, and those were the days Nico liked best. They were the only days when there was a chance of Nico smiling.

Hades ignored him more than ever, and Persephone hated him more. Nico started digging his nails into his palms. Eventually he began drawing blood. He would sit in class, staring down at his hands, at the little red crescent shaped marks surrounded by white, white skin. It hurt, but it made him feel better.

Everything else in his life was going to hell, a lot of it was already there. His father didn't care, Persephone cared too much, but this was one thing that he knew. He could control it. And somehow, that was all he needed.

* * *

“Nico, I'm just asking you to be a little nicer to her.” Hades' voice was calm but was strongly laced with anger.

“Why would I be? When has she ever been nice to me?”

“She's nice to you every damn day, Nico. She makes dinner every night, she asks you about school…”

“Dad, she can't cook and she asks me about school while she's leaving the room. I'm not going to be nice to her, she's a fucking bitch. Why did you even marry her?”

“Do not speak like that! She is your mother!”

“She's not my fucking mother! Maybe you've forgotten, but my  _mother_ died ten years ago!”

“Of course I remember, Nico. But it's time to move on, Maria isn't coming back, and Persephone is trying so hard to be your mother.”

“Well I don't want a mother. I have a mother.”

“Nico, Persephone is trying. I’m just asking you to try, too.”

Nico took a few steps backwards. “Persephone shouldn't be here and I’m not going to pretend to fucking like her.” He turned around and ran upstairs to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

He gripped the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

He hated her. He hated Persephone. And he hated his father for trying to make him like her. What he'd said was true, she couldn't replace his mother, but the entire truth was he couldn't really remember his mother. She'd died when he was three. He remembered her smile, her laugh, and sometimes when he was trying to fall asleep he remembered her singing.

Persephone couldn't replace his mother, but he didn't remember enough about her for Persephone to replace her. No, what Nico was afraid of was Persephone replacing _Bianca_. Bianca had always been his mother figure, even if she was only two years older than he was. Persephone had come into his life a year after Bianca's death. And she couldn't replace Bianca. But what hurt Nico the most was that to his father, Persephone had already replaced Bianca.

He raised his fist and smashed the mirror. Glittering shards rained down into the sink. One of them slashed his hand open, and he stumbled back, clutching his hand and sucking in a breath. His back hit the wall and he slid down it to sit on the floor.

Blood flowed out of the cut on his hand. He watched it, shining in the light. It was warm and sticky but somehow it released something. Like he'd been full of pressure and he'd finally let it out. He felt…free.

Nico tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling. Tears streamed down his face and stung his hand, and he didn't know if he was laughing or sobbing. He found that he didn't care.

* * *

Percy noticed. When he sat down next to Nico at lunch on Tuesday, he noticed. He noticed the long black sleeves Nico was wearing, and maybe he shouldn't have been particularly surprised by that, it was almost December, after all. But something was different.

He asked Nico about the cut on his hand. Nico told him about the broken mirror, but Percy couldn't help but feel like Nico was hiding something. It wasn't just a broken mirror, Percy was sure. Something else had happened. But Nico just brushed him off, insisting that he was fine and that nothing had changed.

Percy tried to brush it aside, but he couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that something was very wrong, and that something had to do with his best friend.

He knew he was right when Nico reached over to steal Percy's apple, and Percy saw the thin red line across Nico's wrist. He didn't confront Nico about it, he didn't want to risk their friendship, especially not now, when Nico was being so open. Besides, he didn't quite understand the idea of cutting oneself, and he wasn't sure he should ask Nico about something that he himself didn't understand. But he decided that if it got any worse he would go to the guidance counselor.

Of course he didn't remember making that same promise to himself a year before, just before Nico had collapsed. He still didn't know what had caused that, but he wasn't particularly worried about it anymore. He had a feeling that Nico wouldn't do whatever it was that he'd been doing that made him collapse.

It didn't occur to Percy that what Nico was doing might be worse.

* * *

“Oh my God, did you see Victoria Jennings' jacket today? It was so cute. I have to find out where she got it,” Amber gushed.

Thalia laughed into the phone. “Amber, not everyone cares about clothes as much as you do.”

“But did you see it?” Thalia had to hold the phone away from her ear so she didn't go deaf. “It was so _cute_. And those sequins totally made it pop.”

“I'm sure.”

Amber humphed. “Look, it's not my fault that you have no grasp whatsoever on any sort of clothes that aren't black.”

“Hey, my favorite t-shirt is bright green.”

“Whatever. We have to go shopping together. Winter break is coming up, we'll go Christmas shopping together. For ourselves.”

Thalia rolled her eyes and was about to answer when she heard her mother calling her name. She sighed. “I gotta go, Amber. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“I s'pose. I dunno, I’m kinda thinkin' I’ll skip tomorrow.”

“Thalia!” her mother screamed.

“I really gotta go, Amber, bye.” She hung up the phone before Amber could answer. She heaved herself up off of her bed to go into the kitchen.

“You'er supposa make d'nner,” her mother slurred. Thalia sighed at the sight of the half-empty bottle sitting on the counter. “Jusd dinner. Stupi' gerl.”

“Come on, mom,” Thalia said. She took her mother's arm and started leading her towards the couch. “Here, lie down and I’ll make dinner.”

She walked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later she heard soft snores coming from the living room.

She sighed and got out a pan to make herself some eggs.

It was the same every night. Her mother couldn't seem to be sober for five minutes. It was a wonder she still had a job.

_ That's what I want _ , she decided.  _ For my birthday, I want my mom to be sober _ . _ It's almost a month away. That could happen, right? It's just one night. I want my mom to be sober for one night. _

Right. Like that would happen.

 


	5. Ninth Grade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amber Day, Micheal Mathews and the Storm sisters (January, June, April, July, May, September and December) are original characters.
> 
> WARNING: Underage drinking, prescription drug use and self harm

Nico leaned back on his hand, staring up at the stars. The water was clear, the moon was bright, and no one ever came to the docks. He'd been coming here for years, since the night of his father and Persephone's wedding. Sometimes he brought his matches and let them and threw them into the water like he had that first night, but usually he brought a flask of whatever alcohol he could find and just stared at the sky while he drank.

He'd been introduced to alcohol at the beginning of the year when Percy had dragged him to a party (“We're in high school, you have to go to a high school party!” Percy had insisted). He didn't remember much about the party and he was pretty sure he didn't want to, but he did remember waking up the next morning with a horrible headache and the feeling that for a while, he'd been free.

He had no idea where he'd gotten the idea to start drinking cough syrup or taking pills, but he felt so much better every night when he was lying there on the docks. He didn't know if he was high or drunk, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Nico took another swig of the vodka in his flask. It burned going down his throat, but he loved it. He pulled the little orange bottle out of his pocket. It was Persephone's xanax, she barely ever took it but she picked up a new bottle of it every few months, so there was always enough for Nico to sneak some. He'd learned the right amount to take after passing out too many times to count and waking up the next morning feeling awful. Sometimes he would take a little bit too much and wouldn't be able to remember the way home, but after doing it for however many months (five? It was February, right?) he'd gotten to the point where he could tell exactly how many he should take to feel numb, but not pass out.

He was getting that feeling now, like everything was in slow motion and nothing mattered. Briefly he wondered if this was how Percy felt underwater, but the thought was soon pushed out of his head by the stars. They were shining brighter tonight, Nico thought. It must be a good night.

He sat up, pulled out his pocket knife, and rolled up his sleeve. He ran his thumb over one set of scars. It was from one of his phases, when he'd been translating Bianca's name into any alphabet he could. He had it in Russian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and he'd even tried in Elvish, but he couldn't quite get the swirly letters right. This particular one was in Greek. Bianca had always wanted to learn Greek.

He couldn't feel his arm, and that was exactly how he wanted it. He pressed the blade of the pocket knife into his skin, and slid it across his arm. He felt the pressure, felt the blood trickling down his arm, saw the blood gleaming in the moonlight, but he didn't feel any pain. He laughed. This was the only time he ever laughed.

It just showed how fucked up he was, didn't it?

And he knew. He knew exactly how fucked up he was. He knew what was wrong, he knew that what he was doing was unhealthy. And he hated it. He hated what he'd turned into. If only Bianca hadn't died. Who would he be if Bianca was still there? Would his father have married Persephone? Would his father still care about him? He wanted his father to care about him. He wanted Percy back. He wanted Persephone gone, because she could never be the mother that she thought she was.

He wanted someone to notice. He wanted someone to care.

And he could feel that somewhere there was someone who did care. Somewhere there was a person who would notice that he was drowning, that he was slowly killing himself. And someday they would come, and everything would get better. He knew it was true. It had to be true. It was all he had left.

But what if they came too late?

* * *

“We're moving.”

Thalia gaped at her mother. For the first time in weeks Lillian Grace was sober, and this was why?

“What?” Thalia said, trying not to screech.

“We're moving.”

“But…why?”

Lillian sighed. “Because I said so.”

_Wow_ , Thalia thought. _I’m fourteen years old, and you still treat me like I’m five. Glad to know I’m so important, Mom. You can't even tell me why we're moving._

But out loud she asked, “When?”

“At the end of the summer. You'll be starting in a new school.”

“But my friends are here. I have a life here!” Thalia knew she was holding on by a thread, and a weak one at that, but she had to try.

Lillian rubbed her temples and mumbled something about needing a drink. “We are moving to New York in August and there's nothing you can say that will stop us.”

_New York_. The words didn't seem to register in Thalia’s mind. They were moving from Florida to New York. And she wasn't even starting high school in New York, she was being thrown into a new school for _tenth grade_. Did her mother have any idea how hard that was? Had Lillian even been in high school? _I can't just start in tenth grade!_ Thalia wanted to scream. _I can't just start in the middle of high school! It's almost as bad as starting in the middle of the year!_

But she didn't say anything because her mother was in a good mood for once and she didn't want to push it. If she pushed it then Lillian might start drinking again and then Thalia would go to school the next day with a black eye.

Well actually she wouldn't, it was Friday.

Wow. Her Friday night was being ruined by her mother, and there wasn't even any alcohol involved. A day for the history books.

“I know you don't want to, but you'll make new friends and it's only for a few years.”

“A few years. What happens then?”

Lillian looked surprised. “Well, I’m assuming you'll go to college.”

Thalia wanted to laugh. College had never been part of her plan. She wanted to open a coffee shop, as weird as that sounded. She didn't think she'd need college to open a coffee shop. And besides, she probably wouldn't get accepted to anything but a community college anyway.

She shook her head. “Where in New York?”

“Manhatten.”

Of course. Lillian had always wanted to go to New York City. She was convinced that it was where all her dreams would come true, although Thalia was never able to figure out what those dreams were. She suspected they had something to do with performing. Her mother couldn't sing to save her life, but she loved to pretend that she could. Thalia wouldn't be surprised if Lillian had some sort of fantasy about being a famous singer. That was probably why they were moving. Of course Lillian would end up working at Walmart or some grocery store or worse: as a prostitute. The prostitute stage had started when Thalia was ten and had ended when she was twelve, and it was by far the worst two years of her life. She thought maybe there had been another prostitute stage that had resulted in Thalia, because she'd never met her father and as far as she knew Lillian didn't know who her father was.

“Fine,” she spat and stormed off to her room, ignoring her mother's yelling.

* * *

“Hey!” Micheal yelled when Thalia walked onto the beach. Thalia grinned. She could already tell he was drunk. He was waving his arms around and he'd almost fallen over when he yelled.

“Hey!” she yelled back. Amber turned around and ran up to Thalia to give her a hug.

“Oh my God, I haven't seen you in like forever!” Amber squealed. Thalia winced.

“Yeah, a whole day. Tragedy.” Thalia laughed.

“Oh, be nice, Des,” she scolded.

December scowled. “Don't call me that,” she snapped. She was wearing black jeans and a black tank top with a black sweatshirt over it. Her dark hair blew in the wind. She was holding a red solo cup.

“Dessy, Dessy, Dessy,” Micheal sang, dancing around her. Everyone except December laughed when he tripped over his own feet and faceplanted into the sand.

“You're an idiot,” Thalia said, helping Micheal up. She kicked off her sandals. The sand was cold, but it felt so good on her bare feet.

“You're going to step on something,” December said in a dry tone.

Thalia rolled her eyes. “December, how much have you had?” she asked.

December shrugged. “A couple beers.”

“Yeah, well, go have more. You're depressing.”

December smirked. “I'm always depressing.”

“Except when you're drunk. Then you're actually pleasant to be around. Go get drunk.”

December rolled her eyes, then turned around and walked away.

Amber tugged at Thalia’s sleeve, bouncing. She was wearing a purple top and a denim jacket and a short brown skirt that flipped up every time she bounced. Her feet were bare. “Come on, come on.”

“Where?”

“To where there are people. Do you like hanging out by yourself? You know, sometimes you're worse than December.”

Thalia rolled her eyes and followed her best friend towards the rest of the party. Micheal seemed to have made his way back.

Amber Day had been Thalia’s best friend since they were in first grade. She'd always been bouncy and excitable and completely oblivious. Even at fourteen, her favorite color was pink and she had a butterfly print backpack. She was the exact opposite of Thalia, who liked black and black and more black. But they balanced each other out.

Micheal Mathews was the captain of the football team and a complete idiot. Which sounded stereotypical, but he was actually very book smart. He just didn't think things through. He was very nice once you got passed the popular boy exterior. He could be a jerk sometimes, but Thalia had been friends with him long enough to know that he was just pretending.

December Storm was sarcastic and mean and didn't like anyone. She dressed in more black than Thalia did. She had six sisters, and they were all named after the month they were born in: January (29), June (26), April (22), July (19), May (17), and September (15). They were all incredibly smart except December, who was failing three classes, and they all had either their mother's blonde hair or their father's red hair except December, who had dark hair. Everyone in the town knew that December was not her father's daughter. Most of the Storm family wasn't particularly fond of December, so she spent most of her time out with her friends. Not that she had many.

“Here,” December said, handing Thalia a red cup. Thalia took a sip and screwed up her face.

“God, this is awful.”

“It's beer.”

Thalia glared at December, who was smirking. “Is there any real alcohol?” she asked in a withering voice.

December shrugged and downed the rest of her cup. “Probably. You might have to wrestle it away from someone, though.”

Thalia threw her head back and sighed. “Fuck it,” she said, and took another gulp of the awful beer. She didn't usually drink beer, she preferred hard liquor, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And this was a desperate time.

“I'm moving,” she announced.

Amber spun around from where she'd been talking to some girl Thalia didn't know and gaped. “What?”

“I'm moving to New York City in August.”

“Lucky bitch,” December muttered into her cup.

“But…but…why?”

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Mom won't tell me. Probably something about 'pursuing her dreams'.”

Amber threw her arms around Thalia’s neck, making Thalia drop her beer. “I'm gonna miss you!”

Thalia laughed. “Well I kinda hoped so.”

After she'd gotten Amber detached from her neck she turned to December. “So?”

“So what?”

“Are you gonna miss me?” she asked, crossing her arms and smirking.

December snorted. “Yeah right,” she said. They all stared at her and she sighed. “Maybe a little.”

“Aww, you're gonna miss me, Dessy.”

December threw her drink at Thalia. “Not anymore I’m not.”

Thalia laughed, despite the fact that her favorite t-shirt was now covered in beer. “Yeah you are.”

December rolled her eyes and walked away.

Thalia turned back to Amber to see that Amber's eyes were full of tears. “Hey, I’ll come visit. Promise.”

Amber sniffed. “I know,” she said, hugging Thalia again. “But I’m still gonna miss you.”

Thalia tightened her hold on her best friend. She was going to miss them too.

 


	6. Tenth Grade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Green Day or any of the Apple products mentioned. As far as I know, Diablo Cove is original.
> 
> WARNING: Mentions of underage drinking, self-harm, and drug use.

Half the people on Thalia’s bus were asleep, and the other half were staring at iPods or iPads or iPhones and had completely zoned out. Thalia was just taking in the scenery. Diablo Cove was gorgeous, beaches and little shops and cobblestone roads, but New York was…grand. There wasn't another word for it. New York had skyscrapers and lights and people and coffee shops…well Diablo Cove had coffee shops, too, but these were _real New York coffee shops_. As much as Thalia missed her friends, she had fallen in love with this city as soon as she'd crossed the bridge to Manhattan at ten o'clock at night, when it was all lit up and the lights were reflected on the water.

Thalia was snapped out of her reverie by the bus stopping and everyone waking up. As she stood up and lifted her messenger bag over her head she suddenly wished that she had slept, too. She was exhausted.

She walked with the crowd into the Goode High School, but stopped when she got to the cafeteria. She'd never had this problem before, she'd always just sat with her friends. In Diablo Cove she'd ruled the school, she could sit with anyone. But now she was the new girl. She didn't have anyone to sit with.

“Hey,” someone behind her said, and she turned around to see a girl with blonde hair and gray eyes smiling at her. “Looking for a place to sit?”

Thalia nodded and the girl's smile widened. “I'm Annabeth,” she said, holding out her hand to shake. Thalia stared at the hand for a second before tentatively taking it and shaking. Teenagers in Florida didn't generally shake hands, but maybe it was a New York thing.

“Thalia,” she said.

“Come on,” Annabeth said, and led Thalia to a table in the middle of the room. “Where are you from?”

“Florida.”

“Wow, that's pretty far.”

Thalia shrugged but didn't answer.

“Guys, this is Thalia,” Annabeth introduced. “Thalia, this is Grover,” a black kid with crutches, “Luke,” tall blonde haired boy with blue eyes and a mischievous smirk, “and Percy,” black hair and green eyes and a slightly bewildered look that might have come from being half awake, “my idiots.”

Thalia laughed while the boys all feigned hurt. “I'm wounded, Annabeth,” Luke said.

“Yeah, Annie, she should be able to decide that by herself,” Percy added.

Annabeth scowled at him. “Don't call me Annie,” she snapped.

Percy cowered and Grover laughed. “Go get some coffee,” he told Annabeth.

“Dude, you have _coffee_ here?” Thalia asked incredulously.

The other four looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Yeah, why?”

“We didn't have it at my old school. God, my mom hasn't set up our coffee maker yet, I thought I was gonna have to go without today.”

The boys laughed and Annabeth put a hand on her shoulder. “We wouldn't want you to suffer like that, come on.”

They went through the line and each got a cup of coffee, seven creams and six sugars for Thalia and one cream for Annabeth. When they got to the cash register Thalia pulled out her wallet but Annabeth put a hand on Thalia’s.

“I've got it. It's hard enough being a new girl, might as well have someone else pay for coffee,” Annabeth said, pulling out money and handing it to the cashier.

“You may be my new favorite person in the world,” Thalia said and took a sip of her coffee. “Oh God, this is awful.”

“I said they have coffee, I never said it was good.”

“You know what, it's coffee.”

The two girls walked back to their table laughing.

* * *

Nico never went to the cafeteria in the morning. It was his rule. It was easier to avoid people if you weren't where they were.

But he considered breaking that rule when he walked into school on the first day of tenth grade and saw her sitting at a table in the cafeteria. She had spiky black hair and brilliant blue eyes and she was laughing, and Nico didn't need to hear it because seeing her smile was enough. He didn't know her name, he didn't know where she'd come from, but the fact that she was sitting there with Percy and Percy's new friends was almost enough to make him go over and sit with them.

But instead he adjusted the backpack that hung on his shoulder by one strap and kept going, up to the second floor and his locker.

He had another rule for school: never skip anything the first day. As much as he hated school, he just felt like skipping the first class of any course wasn't fair. But again, he was considering breaking that rule today. He didn't want to even try suffering through the entire day. He just wanted to go home and lie in bed listening to Green Day. Maybe he could just skip one class.

He stopped at his locker, but he wasn't sure why. He never used it. He just carried everything around with him. He'd learned that people usually hung out in the hallways between classes, so the less time he had to spend there the better.

Just like he did every day Nico glanced down the hall to where Percy's locker was. He still considered Percy a friend even though he hadn't talked to Percy since maybe January.

Nico froze when he saw the beautiful girl from the cafeteria leaning against Percy's locker, talking to Percy Annabeth, Luke and Grover, and laughing.

He quickly turned back to his locker and began trying to open it.

* * *

Thalia had noticed the black-haired boy staring at her. She'd noticed him in the cafeteria, too. She didn't know why she found him so intriguing. She'd only seen him twice and she didn't know his name, but he was interesting.

“Who's that?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of him.

Annabeth looked up and in the direction Thalia was staring. “Who?”

Thalia pointed down the hall. “The kid in black. He's playing with his locker.”

Luke snorted. He was leaning against the locker next to Thalia with his arms crossed. “A freak.”

Percy slammed his locker shut. “He's not a freak,” he spat out. Annabeth lay on hand on Percy's arm and glared at Luke. “His name is Nico. And he's not a freak, he just…”

“Has trouble,” Annabeth finished for him. “His sister died a few years ago, and he hasn't been the same since.”

“He collapsed in the cafeteria in seventh grade,” Grover continued. “and didn't come back to school until the beginning of eighth. Some people thought he was on drugs, but I didn't believe that.”

Luke unfolded his arms, stood up straight, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “That's because he wasn't. Yet.”

Percy made a move forward but Annabeth held him back. “ _He doesn't_ ,” Percy hissed.

“Percy, go to class,” Annabeth commanded. “You, too, Luke.”

Luke pushed past them and started down the hall. Grover grabbed Percy's arm and tugged him to their own classroom.

Annabeth turned back to Thalia. She sighed. “Nico used to be Percy's best friend, before his sister died. He sort of ended up drifting away. Now…” she trailed off and sighed again. “Honestly, I think Percy's kidding himself. I'd be surprised if Nico didn't do drugs.”

“God,” Thalia breathed.

Annabeth nodded. “Come on.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

Thalia glanced down the hall at where Nico had been standing, but he was gone.

* * *

She didn't realize she shared a study hall in the library with him until she heard people whispering. “Did you know that kid does drugs?” one girl said to her friend. They were sitting at the table next to Thalia's.

The friend must have been as new to the school as Thalia was, because she stared at the first girl with wide eyes. “Really?”

Thalia snorted to herself. What kind of idiot girl was this? There were so many kids in this school who did drugs. This was New York.

“Yeah. I guess his sister died or something, and he kinda went crazy.”

“How'd she die?” the second girl asked in a breathless tone.

The first girl leaned in conspiratorially. “Plane crash. My brother said he saw him lighting things on fire.”

Thalia almost laughed out loud. These people were even more stupid than the people in Diablo's Cove. She'd love to know what December would say. She'd pick these bitches apart.

At the table in front of her Thalia saw Nico sitting alone. He was pretending to read a book, but she could see how white his knuckles were. He could hear the girls.

Thalia leaned towards the girls' table and said in a loud whisper, “Hey.”

The two girls looked at her, along with a few other people in the vicinity. “Mind your own fucking business,” she said, then turned back to the worksheet she was attempting.

She glanced up at Nico, and almost cheered when she saw the tiny smile playing on his lips.

* * *

Four months later, Nico sat in the back of French class staring at Thalia in front of him. He hadn't ever said anything to her, not even to thank her that first day for standing up for him. But he watched her every time they had class together.

She still hung out with Percy, Grover, Luke and Annabeth, but he'd noticed that by the end of her first month at Goode High everyone in the school knew her name. She had her fair share of admirers, too, but it didn't seem that she really noticed any of them.

Especially not him.

He would admit that he had a crush on her, but he knew he didn't have a chance. She had a boyfriend. Luke. Of course. He had blonde hair and blue eyes and he was _perfect_. If Nico hadn't had a chance with her before, he _definitely_ didn't have one now, not if that was her type.

* * *

“Luke, this isn't working.”

Luke stared at Thalia. “What do you mean?”

Thalia sighed. They were standing on the patio outside Rachel Elizabeth Dare's house. Loud music pounded from inside, and Thalia was sure it would match the pounding in her head tomorrow morning.

“I really like you, Luke, but I don't think it's the way I should.”

Luke blinked.

“I'm breaking up with you.”

He exhaled. “You know, maybe next time you should start with that.”

Thalia chuckled. “Yeah, and maybe I shouldn't do it when we're both half drunk.”

“That too.” He took her hand. “Why?”

“Because you're my friend, but I don't like you as a boyfriend. I really want to stay friends with you, though.”

Luke let go of her hand and crossed his arms. “Of course I'll stay your friend. You're not getting rid of me that easily.”

She laughed. “And I see the way you look at Nicole.”

He groaned and leaned his head back. “Is it really that obvious?”

Thalia laughed again. “Yeah.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I think I saw her in there. And you're newly single.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Laughing, they walked back into the party.

 


	7. Eleventh Grade Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Moore is original, as well as Diablo Cove (as far as I know).
> 
> WARNING: Underage drinking and terrible jokes.

Thalia slammed the door behind her. In the elevator she threaded her hands into her hair and breathed deeply. She hated her mother. God, she hated her mother.

Her mother had spent the last half an hour blaming Thalia for a wine bottle that had gone missing. Of course she’d either drank the bottle and forgot, or never bought it in the first place, but that didn’t matter to Lillian. She and Thalia fought at least once a week. Thalia was just glad that this time she’d gotten out before it escalated.

She left the apartment building and began walking through the streets. She’d gotten better at navigating her way through New York, but she didn’t want New York now. She didn’t want skyscrapers and honking traffic and people yelling in more languages than Thalia could count. She wanted stars and ocean. She wanted her friends. She wanted Diablo Cove.

She’d never considered running away, never let herself consider it, but now she did. Leaving New York, going back to Florida. Or maybe she wouldn’t even go to Florida. Maybe she’d go somewhere else. California. Or maybe she’d go north, Vermont, Maine, or maybe she’d go all the way to Canada.

Thalia chuckled to herself. She’d never make it, she knew. She couldn’t survive on the streets. She didn’t know how. Sure, she could learn, but she wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to Florida, or anywhere.

Maybe she’d try it someday. Spend one night on the streets. Just to see if she could make it. Or a weekend.

She laughed again. She was being ridiculous. Besides, she only had two more years. Then she could go wherever she wanted.

Thalia hadn’t been paying attention to where she’d been going, and she found herself nearing some warehouses. A part of her was screaming at her to go back. She’d heard the stories about what happened in warehouses, especially warehouses like these, which looked abandoned. But another part of her told her to keep going. She was bored, and she didn’t want to go back to the places that she knew. And there was no one here.

She kept walking, past the warehouses, and came to an old dock. It was wooden, and she could see the places where it was rotting. The ocean shone in the moonlight. The dock wasn’t safe, and the sea smelled of rotten fish and garbage, but Thalia walked to the end of the dock and sat down, gazing at the water.

It wasn’t Diablo Cove, but it was something. She didn’t think she’d ever find somewhere like Diablo Cove, especially not like the cove itself. The town and surrounding beaches were beautiful, but Diablo Cove was something else. Thalia could just picture it on a night like tonight. Calm, black waters that looked like obsidian and sand that shone so bright in the moonlight it looked white. The idea of the rocks hiding just beneath the water that had given the cove its name. The ships that had sunk so many years ago.

This was different. This water was black, but it was deeper. There were no rocks, no sunken ships. Thalia imagined sharks and manta rays swimming beneath her feet. Of course there probably weren’t any sharks or manta rays this close to shore, but Thalia pushed that thought out of her mind and tried to enjoy the bottomless feeling of the ocean.

She heard a noise behind her. It sounded like someone walking. But she didn’t turn around, and it didn’t come again. Maybe she’d just imagined it. She sat still for a few seconds, waiting to see if she would hear it again, but she didn’t. She decided that if it had been a person they would have spoken, and if it was something she needed to worry about it would have made her worry already.

Half an hour later Thalia stood up, dusted off her butt, and turned around. She froze when she saw Nico di Angelo standing behind her. It had been a year since she’d come to Goode High School, and she still hadn’t ever said anything to him. She’d seen him in the hall and in class, and heard what people had said about him, and she’d even defended him a few times. But she still didn’t know any more about him than she’d learned the first day, except his last name (which she thought sounded perfect with his first name. _Nico di Angelo_ ).

After a moment she walked past him, off the dock, and toward her apartment. Her mother would be asleep by now.

* * *

She saw him in school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but he wasn’t there Thursday or Friday. She didn’t talk to him, barely even looked at him.

On Friday night, a week after their encounter on the docks, she went back. There was no one there and she sat down, hanging her legs over the side and staring at the water. She hoped he would come again. She wanted to talk to him, she’d wanted to talk to him since she first saw him.

She heard the sound behind her and smiled. She turned around. He was standing there with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing black jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket. She smiled and waved him over.

Nico stared at her. She’d been there last week, too, and he’d just stared at her. She’d looked beautiful, her hair shining in the moonlight. He’d been content to just stand there staring. A few times he’d almost said something, but he hadn’t had the courage.

But now she was sitting there smiling at him and telling him to sit next to her. What was he supposed to do? Part of him wanted to sit down, and part of him wanted to turn and run. But he ignored both parts and just stood there staring at her until she shrugged and turned back around to look at the ocean.

He was still staring at her when she stood up and walked off the dock. He turned around and watched her go, which was more than he’d done last week. Last week he’d stood there, looking at the dark water and wondering if that had really happened.

But this time her shoulder brushed against his arm, and he knew from the tingling sensation that she was real. He watched her leave. He almost called out to her, even opened his mouth, his lips forming her name, but he couldn’t make a sound.

Unconsciously Nico put his hand on his left arm and ran his thumb over where he knew the Russian spelling of Bianca’s name was. He turned back to the ocean and stared for a moment, then turned around and left. For some reason he didn’t want to stay that night.

He went to school every day next week, hoping to have the courage to say something to her, but he never did. Every day he watched her in class, and he felt something in his chest, like a hollowness. It was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.

On Friday night he was sitting on his bed filling one of his flasks with vodka that he’d taken from his father and thinking about Thalia. He wondered if she’d be there again. If she was, would he be able to talk to her? Would he sit down next to her, or would he stand there staring like an idiot the way he had the past two weeks.

Across the room Nico noticed an extra silver flask, and an idea occurred to him. He stood up, crossed the room, picked up the flask, and sat back down on his bed to fill it.

Half an hour later he was passing the warehouses. When he saw Thalia sitting on the dock and staring at the ocean he stopped.

 _I can do this_ , he told himself. He swallowed and walked down to the end of the dock. He sat down next to her. Without taking his eyes off of the ocean or saying anything he reached into his jacket and handed her the extra flask.

Thalia smiled. She was finally getting somewhere with him. She opened the flask and took a drink. As the alcohol burned in her throat she almost laughed. Finally, someone with taste.

The minutes ticked by and they didn’t say anything to each other. Nico’s heart was thumping in his chest. He was sitting next to her, that was a step in the right direction (he hoped). Now should he say something?

Thalia beat him to it. “Mrs. Moore’s a bitch,” she said.

Nico smirked but didn’t say anything.

After waiting for him to reply and deciding he wasn’t going to, she continued, “It’s like she hates us.”

“She does,” Nico said, and took another swig from the flask.

Thalia looked at him. She wanted to smile, to cheer, to tell the whole world that she’d gotten Nico to talk, but instead she asked. “Why? I mean wouldn’t we do better in class if we didn’t think she hated us?”

He snorted.

They sat in silence again. Nico patted himself on the back for talking to her at all.

“Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?” he asked finally.

She lifted an eyebrow but answered, “Why?”

“He didn’t have the guts.”

“That was awful.”

“I know.”

Thalia started laughing, and Nico’s face broke into a smile.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got one,” Thalia said when she’d calmed down. “What does a vegan zombie eat?”

Nico turned to look at her. “A vegan zombie?”

She nodded. “Yes. What does a vegan zombie eat?”

“What?”

“Grains.”

“Why don’t people in Africa gamble?”

“Oh come on, you have to at least laugh a little at that one.” He stared at her and she sighed. “Why?”

“’Cause there are too many cheetahs.”

Thalia leaned forward and put her head in her hands.

“That’s not even my worst one,” Nico said, grinning. He felt a little light headed, and he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or because he hadn’t smiled this much in ages.

Thalia looked up at him. “Do I even want to know?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. It’s your turn.”

She leaned back and looked up at the sky. Despite all the air pollution, she could almost see the stars. “What did the psychiatrist say when a man walked into her

office wearing nothing but plastic wrap?”

“Oh no. What did he say?”

She grinned. “’I can clearly see you’re nuts!’”

Nico laughed. Thalia’s smile stretched across her face. This was better than she thought she would ever get.

“Okay, now you have to tell me your worst one.”

He nodded. “What’s brown and sticky?”

She thought for a second. “Caramel?”

“Nope. A stick.”

Thalia nearly fell off the dock laughing, although that might have had something to do with the fact that she’d finished nearly half the flask of vodka. “Where did you get that?”

Nico tipped his head back. “I think my friend told it to me when we were in like first grade. And, you know, still friends.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

They sat there for another hour, and Nico found that he loved Thalia’s voice even more when he wasn’t listening to her answer questions in class.

The next week when he arrived and found Thalia drinking from her own flask, he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eleventh grade is split into three different chapters: one at the beginning of the grade, one closer to the end, and one in the summer before twelfth grade.


	8. Eleventh Grade Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Mount Sinai Hospital. Maggie Carter is an original character.

Nico could hear his father yelling at him to come back as he picked up his sneakers and slammed the door behind him. He ran down the hallway to the elevator and pushed the button so hard he was almost afraid it would break. He glanced back down at their apartment, expecting to see his father coming after him, but the door remained closed.

In the elevator he put on his shoes and then leaned back against the wall.

It was Persephone, of course. It was always about Persephone. His father barely ever spoke to him if it wasn’t about Persephone. Nico was still waiting for her to come screaming at him about the Xanax that he’d been taking, but he didn’t think she would ever notice. This time his father had come to his room after dinner and told him that Persephone was missing some jewelry. It wasn’t likely that she’d said outright that she thought Nico had taken the pair of earrings she was missing (they were diamond, given to her by Hades for their wedding anniversary), but she had a way of hinting that he’d done whatever it was that had happened.

He hadn’t touched the earrings, and he’d told his father as much, but of course his father didn’t believe him.

Nico didn’t notice that he’d gotten to the docks until he was there, his fists clenched and his breath coming in gasps. He sat down.

He hated her. Even more now that she’d quit her job as a teacher and was always around. But it wasn’t that she was always there and was always trying to poke her nose into his business. It was that his father thought that she was perfect. It was that Hades treated her like a goddess. It was that Hades thought that she could replace Maria.

And she never could. She would never be Nico’s mother, no matter what Hades said.

He wanted them back. Maria and Bianca. He wanted Bianca to hold his hand and tell him that everything was going to be okay. Because even though he knew she was lying, he still almost believed her. He wanted Maria to kiss his head like she used to when he was little and sing to him in Italian. He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

He reached under the dock and unfastened the bottle of vodka he’d hidden there. He took a swig of it, not even wincing when it burned his throat. He was used to it by now. He took a few more swigs, then opened the bottle of Xanax he had in his coat pocket and swallowed a few.

He’d finished the first quarter of the bottle when he pulled out his black pocket knife and started sliding it across his skin. After so many years, he couldn’t find a place that hadn’t been scarred.

Tears dripped onto his lap but he didn’t wipe them off his cheeks, just let them fall. His mother’s face swam through his vision. What would she say if she saw him now? Would she be disappointed? Would she hate him for what he’d become?

He was trembling, and his hand slipped. He gasped as the knife sliced down his arm and blood began to pour onto the docks, faster than before. His mind was hazy from the vodka and Xanax, but as he watched the blood dripping into the water he knew that he wouldn’t survive the night if he didn’t call someone.

As he thought about it he realized that he didn’t care. He would rather die.

He lay down on his back and stared up at the sky. Usually the pollution from the city hid the stars, but tonight they shone brightly. The world around him became dark, but the stars above him never disappeared. They were spinning. He fought against the urge to close his eyes.

* * *

 _The stars are brighter tonight_ , Thalia noticed as she walked past the warehouses to the dock. _They’re beautiful. I wonder if they reflect on the water._

She rounded the corner and the dock came into view. She smiled when she saw Nico lying on his back.

“Sleepy?” she called as she stepped onto the wooden planks.

He didn’t answer.

She frowned. “Nico?”

The stars were still swimming above Nico’s head when he heard someone calling his name. It sounded far away, like it was through a tunnel. The voice was familiar, but when he tried to think of who it was his head began to ache.

“Nico,” Thalia called again. He still didn’t answer, and she was getting worried. She started walking faster.

She fell to her knees beside him and said his name again. His eyes were glassy, but he was still awake. She felt something wet on her knees and looked down. It was dark, so she put her hand down to feel the dock. Her fingers came up red. When she saw his arm she felt sick.

“Nico,” she said, trying not to cry. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. “Nico.” She lifted one hand to his cheek. Maybe it was just the moonlight, but he looked paler than usual.

She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let herself cry.

 _Go away_ , Nico wanted to say, but his tongue was too heavy. This black head was blocking his stars. He wanted to see the stars. He wanted to see the stars before he died.

Nico blinked slowly and lifted a hand. Thalia thought he was trying to push her away, but the hand only hit air. Thalia grabbed it. It was cold and clammy. She couldn’t remember how to find the pulse in the wrist, so she let go of his hand and tried to find his pulse in his neck. It was weak.

She pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

Through the tunnel Nico heard the person talking on a phone, and he realized that it was Thalia. He tried to lift his left arm to take the phone from her, but the movement sent a wave of dizziness through him, and the stars swam even more, going dark for a heartbeat.

When she was finished telling the man on the phone where she was Thalia closed her cellphone and put it back into her pocket.

“You’re gonna be okay,” she said, her voice shaking. She took his right hand in her left and put her own right hand on his cheek. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said again. It came out as a whisper this time.

“No,” he murmured.

He didn’t want to be okay. Thalia should have known, she should have seen, she spent more time with him than anyone else did. But he seemed okay. They laughed together, they shared stories from school. She’d thought he was just lonely.

But she should have known. What kind of boy sits on a dock every Friday night drinking vodka?

 _A boy like me_ , she thought. _He’s just like me._

She sobbed, feeling like she would choke. “Please,” she managed, but couldn’t get any further. Instead she leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

Nico heard Thalia sobbing, and somewhere very far away he heard a loud wailing sound. It pierced through his skull, and he wanted it to stop, but he couldn’t say anything.

His eyes slid shut, and he felt something against his lips right before he lost consciousness.

The lights from the ambulance blinded Thalia. She staggered to her feet.

“Carter! Get the girl!” someone yelled, and a few seconds later a woman with sandy blonde hair came running up to Thalia.

She smiled. “Hi, I’m Maggie. I’m going to help you, okay?”

Thalia nodded and let herself be led away. Her hands were covered in Nico’s blood and tears were still falling down her cheeks.

She didn't say anything the entire time Maggie was cleaning her up. She was brought to the hospital to answer some questions (his name, his age, his parents). When Maggie brought her home she collapsed on her bed and fell asleep.

* * *

Hades lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He wished Nico would just listen to him. He wasn't trying to make an enemy of his son, he was trying to get Nico to accept Persephone. And he wasn't accusing Nico of taking the earrings that his wife had lost. He just wanted to know if Nico had seen them.

He glanced at the clock. 11:51 PM. Persephone was asleep, and Nico had been gone for nearly two and a half hours. Where was he?

In his gut he knew that something wasn't right, but he brushed the feeling away. Nico was fine. This wasn't the first time he'd disappeared, and he'd always come back.

Hades turned onto his side, facing his wife, and tried to fall asleep. After five minutes of trying, he threw back the covers and went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

He was about to go back to his bedroom when the phone rang.

He frowned, but picked it up anyway. Who was calling at midnight on a Friday?

“Di Angelo,” he said.

“Is this Mr. Hades di Angelo?” asked the man on the other end.

“Yes.”

The man cleared his throat. “My name is Mitchell O'Brian, I'm a receptionist at Mount Sinai Hospital. Do you know a boy named Nico di Angelo?”

For a moment Hades couldn't breathe. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, he's my son. What happened?”

“I need you to come down to Mount Sinai, please, Mr. di Angelo.”

“What happened?” Hades asked again, gripping the counter to keep himself standing. He heard Persephone behind him.

Mitchell paused. “Has your son ever displayed any suicidal tendencies?”

“Suici…no. Did he…” Hades couldn't finish the sentence.

“Nico was found with a slit wrist that was confirmed to have been self-inflicted.”

The world spun for a moment and he almost collapsed. Persephone put a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. di Angelo?” Mitchell said.

Hades cleared his throat. “I'll be right down,” he said in a hoarse voice, and hung up the phone. He turned to his wife. “We have to go.”

“Go where?” Persephone asked as he went back into their bedroom to change.

“Just get ready, we have to go _now_.”

Persephone didn't question him, just slipped on a sundress and picked up her shoes.

In the car Hades forced himself to breathe. _He'll be fine_ , he told himself.

He spent the entire ride trying to convince himself that it was true.


	9. Eleventh Grade Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lily Springs Youth Care Facility is an original organization and place.

 The room was white. The bed was white. The table next to the bed was white. Nico was glad that they'd let him wear his own clothes, because if they'd made him stay in that stupid white dress thing they'd put him in before he thought he might go crazy.

Well, crazier than he already was. He was in a loony bin. A “residential treatment center for troubled teens” was what the nice lady with too much lipstick on and a too-wide smile had called it, but of course that was just a nice term for loony bin. He'd seen the other kids here. Some of them were like him, at least that's what the doctors said, but Nico knew that there was no one like him. They might do the same things as him, drink and cut and do drugs, but they weren't _like him_.

He leaned back and rested against the (white) wall and stared up at the (white) ceiling. He'd asked one of the doctors if he could paint something on the walls and ceiling, just to make them more interesting, but he'd been informed that they couldn't give patients paint, just like they couldn't give patients knives, even plastic ones. Of course that was stupid, because the paper towel dispensers in the bathrooms had serrated edges, but he'd decided not argue. It didn't really matter what color the walls were anyway. He'd be getting out of there soon enough. He hoped.

It was three weeks into his stay, and he hated it just as much as he had when he'd arrived. Maybe he was getting better, but he wasn't sure what that meant anymore. Had there ever been anything wrong with him in the first place? Or was it everything around him?

His father and Persephone had visited a few times. Persephone was trying to play nice with him, bringing him chocolates and a different bouquet of flowers every week. She insisted they made the room look nicer. He always poured the chocolates down the toilet and pulled the flowers apart, and he never talked to them.

He secretly hoped that Thalia would come. As much as he hated to admit it, he missed her. He missed her bad jokes and her snarky comments about their teachers. And he missed the Cheez-Its that she would bring sometimes, because the food at Lily Springs Youth Care Facility (which wasn't located anywhere near any sort of spring) sucked. He knew she'd called 911 for him, but maybe she was scared of him now, just like she should have been from the beginning. Had the kiss even been real? He couldn't be sure.

The door opened, but Nico didn't lift his head from the wall. It was probably just another doctor here to talk to him. Some shrink who would ask him nosy questions that he didn't want to answer, and that he probably wouldn't answer.

He did look up when the person sat on his bed and said, “Nico.”

It was his father. He looked around for Persephone, but she wasn't there.

As if reading his mind Hades said, “She's still at home. I'm on my lunch break, I wanted to know if maybe you'd talk to me if she wasn't here. I know…” he sighed. “I know you don't like her.”

Nico blinked.

“I'm sorry, Nico.”

He looked down at his hands.

“I don't know where we went wrong, but I know it was my fault, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Nico didn't look up.

Hades sighed. He hadn't really expected Nico to talk to him, but it was worth a try. And it was nice to be able to talk to his son without Persephone there. As much as he loved her, she could be a bit overwhelming. He stood up to leave.

His hand was on the doorknob when Nico said, “Don't be sorry.”

He turned around. Nico was still staring at his hands.

Nico swallowed. “Don't be sorry,” he said again. “It wasn't your fault.” Hades took a few steps forward. “I'm sorry. I didn't try. I'm…I'm…a terrible son.”

Hades sat down on the bed again. Nico pulled his knees up to his chest. There were tears streaming down his face, and his lip trembled. It was the first time in a long time Hades had seen Nico cry. In fact, it was the first time since Bianca's death that Nico had dropped his walls, taken off his mask, and shown his father what he really felt.

Hades moved up to sit next to Nico and wrapped his arms around his son. Nico froze for a moment, but finally he let the dam break and leaned against his father's chest, sobbing.

“You're not a terrible son, Nico,” Hades said. “You're just a kid.”

 _Just a kid_. The words echoed through Nico's head, and he knew that Hades hadn't meant them in a derogatory way. He was just a kid, and he hadn't been able to believe it for a long time. Because _kids_ didn't open the door to find out that their sister was dead. _Kids_ didn't pass out in the cafeteria. _Kids_ didn't spend their nights sitting on an abandoned dock drinking and cutting themselves. _Kids_ didn't almost kill themselves.

But he was just a kid, and for the first time in over six years, he let himself believe it.

* * *

Thalia lay on her stomach on her bed, staring at her phone. She cursed herself for not asking for Nico's number. She knew he was okay (or at least alive) but she didn't know where he was. She didn't even know where his apartment was, so she couldn't go to see if he was home, although she doubted that he was. And now that she thought about it, he probably didn't have his phone with him anyway. He would have been taken to some sort of mental hospital or something, and it wasn't likely that they would have let him keep his phone.

But still, it would have made her feel better if she'd had his number or his address. Something so that she wasn't just sitting here, waiting to see him again. It was agony.

As she was staring at it, her phone lit up and began playing her ringtone. She grimaced. She really had to change that.

Annabeth's picture was displayed on the screen. Thalia debated ignoring the call, but she knew that Annabeth wouldn't leave her alone until she answered.

She cleared her throat, hoping to sound normal, and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Thalia! Oh, good, I thought you weren't going to answer.”

Thalia forced a laugh. “Why wouldn't I answer?”

“Well you've been kinda MIA for a while,” Annabeth said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” But her voice was strained, and Annabeth could tell.

“Seriously, Thalia, what's wrong?”

Thalia gritted her teeth. She didn't want to talk right now unless it was to Nico. “I'm fine, Annabeth.”

Annabeth snorted. “Yeah, no you're not. I'm coming over.”

She hung up before Thalia could protest.

Thalia sighed and threw the phone down onto her bed. She put her face into her pillow and lifted her hands over her head.

That was the way Annabeth found her forty minutes later when she strode into Thalia's room.

“Thalia,” she said softly. She sat down on the floor next to Thalia's head. Thalia turned her face to look at Annabeth. “What's going on?”

Thalia bit her lip for a second. “You know Nico?”

“Not personally, but you know that. Why?”

“I…” she bit her lip again, trying to think of what to say.

Annabeth put a hand on Thalia's shoulder. “Did he hurt you?”

“No!” Thalia cried and rolled over onto her back. “No. I started hanging out with him on the abandoned dock in November.”

“Wait,” Annabeth interrupted. “You were hanging out with Nico di Angelo? Thalia what the hell were you thinking? That kid is dangerous!”

Thalia sat up. “He's not! He's…he's just…he has trouble. But he's actually really nice when you get to know him. Well, not nice. He's nice the way I'm nice, you know?”

Annabeth stood up and sat back down on the edge of Thalia's bed. “So what happened?”

Thalia crossed her legs and looked down at her hands. “I found him,” she whispered.

“What do you mean you found him?”

“He…he cuts himself…or he used to. And he was…cutting, and he…he tried to kill himself.” Thalia's lip trembled.

“God,” Annabeth breathed. “And you found him?”

Thalia nodded and took a deep breath, brushing away tears. “He was on the dock and he was bleeding and I tried to help him and…”

“Thalia.” Annabeth put her hands on Thalia's shoulders. “Did Nico…did he…”

She shook her head. “No, the ambulance got there in time. But…his blood was all over my hands, Annie.”

Annabeth wrapped her arms around Thalia, and Thalia sobbed into her shoulder. “And now I can't talk to him. I don't know where he is, I don't have his number, I don't have his address, I can't find out if he's okay.”

Annabeth rubbed her back. “It'll be okay, Thalia,” she promised.

Thalia leaned back, sniffling. “You can't tell anyone,” she said.

“I won't.” Annabeth tucked a strand of Thalia’s hair behind her ear and smiled. She didn't like the idea of Thalia spending time with Nico, she cared about her friend and she knew that Nico was…troubled, but Thalia cared about Nico. “He'll be okay.”

Thalia nodded and wiped her face. “I know. I just wish I could talk to him. Not knowing anything is worse than knowing that he's never coming back or something.”

As she wrapped her friend in another hug, Annabeth tried not to think that maybe it would be good if Nico didn't come back.


	10. Twelfth Grade

 Nico stared at his feet as he walked into school on the first day of twelfth grade. He could hear people whispering and knew that they were staring. Everyone had heard about what had happened that night on the dock, he’d heard there was even an assembly for him. Which seemed a little pointless, seeing as he wasn’t there for it. But really, he wouldn’t have wanted to be there for it. He didn’t want people to talk about him. He was jealous of Thalia. She hadn’t been mentioned in the assembly, or in the newspaper article that Persephone had brought him. It was such a Persephone thing to do, bring him a copy of what other people were saying about the night he almost killed himself.

He wondered again if what had happened that night was real, or if he’d just imagined Thalia kissing him. Would she ever be able to look at him the same way again? Probably not. And it probably wasn’t real anyway. Why would someone as amazing as Thalia kiss him?

Pulling his sleeves down to hide the long scar on his left wrist Nico made his way to the second floor and his locker.

* * *

Thalia leaned against her locker. Luke was telling the four of them about the cruise his parents took him on to Bermuda and how they’d gone through the Bermuda Triangle, but Thalia tuned him out. She didn’t really care. She could feel Annabeth watching her. Thalia hadn’t spent much time with any of her friends that summer except for Annabeth. She’d talked to Amber and December on the phone a few times (actually she’d only talked to December once, and she wasn’t sure if she should bleach the memory from her mind or not), but she hadn’t seen Percy, Luke or Grover at all. Annabeth had managed to get a hold of Nico’s home address for Thalia, but when she’d gone there no one had been home, and she hadn’t gotten the courage to go again.

Would Nico come to school? Was he even back home? For all she knew he might still be in the loony bin, which she was convinced he’d been taken to. It had been five months. Would they let him out after that long?

She glanced at the door in the hopes that Nico might walk through, but even if he had she probably wouldn’t have been able to distinguish him from the rest of the people. She could barely see the doors as it was.

“Thalia,” she heard, and turned back to see all four of her friends staring at her. Luke laughed. “I asked you how your summer was.”

“Fine,” she answered in a bored tone.

“I didn’t see you at all,” Percy said.

Thalia glanced at Annabeth who gave her a nearly imperceptible nod, telling her to tell them what she wanted.

“I went to visit my friends in Florida,” she lied, hoping that they hadn’t seen her on the streets or something.

Thankfully none of them apparently had. “Oh that’s cool. How are they?” Percy asked.

Thalia forced a laugh. “Crazy as ever.”

They all laughed with her, and Annabeth changed the subject. “Percy and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Percy groaned and dropped his head back. “Seven hours. She managed to get me looking at art for seven hours.”

Annabeth, Luke, Grover and Thalia all laughed, and as Annabeth began to describe the trip, Thalia looked back at the door. She didn’t see him and was about to turn back and actually try to listen to Annabeth’s description of the Temple of Dendur when she saw a mop of messy black hair standing at Nico’s locker.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to her friends. As she made her way towards him she broke into a smile.

“Hey,” she said when she was standing next to him. He jumped and turned to her, then smiled a little.

“Hi,” he said softly. It was the first time they’d spoken in school.

“I tried to go to your house, but there wasn’t anyone there.”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t have mattered. I only go home last week.”

“From where.”

Nico looked down at the notebooks he was struggling with and didn’t answer. They both knew anyway.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Am I not allowed to talk to my friend?” Thalia asked, smirking a little.

“Didn’t know we were friends,” Nico said, so softly Thalia almost couldn’t hear it over the yelling in the hallway.

“Nico,” she began, then stopped.

“What?”

“Do you…do you…remember?”

Nico froze. He knew what she was talking about. _Oh my God_ , he thought, _it_ was _real_.

He turned to stare at Thalia, and her heart sank. _He doesn’t remember_ , she thought. _Fuck, he doesn’t remember._

Nico turned back to his locker, put his notebooks down, and looked at her again. He put a hand on the back of her neck and kissed her.

It was short, and Thalia barely had a chance to smile before it was finished. Nico leaned forward and whispered into her ear, “Yeah.”

Thalia’s smile grew wider, and she wrapped her arms around him in a hug. “Good,” she said when she let go of him. “’Cause I didn’t want to have to tell you again.”

Nico grinned and chuckled. It had been a long time since he’d done either in school.

“What’s your first class?” she asked. Nico pulled out his schedule from his bag.

“Art 1,” he answered finally. Thalia raised an eyebrow and he sighed. “I have to have an art credit to graduate.”

“You have to have an art _sss_ credit,” Thalia corrected, drawing out the s. “Theater and music count, too.”

“Can you imagine me onstage?” Nico asked, and Thalia laughed.

“Come on, Mister,” she said, taking his hand. “I have the same class.”

As they made their way down the hall, Nico looked at everyone staring at him and realized that they didn’t matter. Whether or not they liked him didn’t make a difference. So he was different. Honestly, there were a lot more people in this school that were like him, so why did they care so much about him?

Because he let them. Because he didn’t look them in the face and let them know that he didn’t give a shit what they thought.

That was going to change this year, Nico decided. He wasn’t going to let them think that they were better than him. If Thalia believed in him, believed that he could get better and that he deserved a second chance, if she was willing to give him that second chance, then why shouldn’t he take it?

He looked down at her and smiled wider than he ever had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! Thanks for sticking with this story, even if you've already read it on fanfiction.net, and I'm sorry I take so long between updates. I really shouldn't, seeing as how I had all of these chapters pre-written.
> 
> Also, for anyone who reads Celebrations with Gummy Bears, you know how I said I'd have the Halloween story up yesterday? Obviously I lied. I'm sorry, it's not finished, and I don't know when it's going to be finished. In fact, I don't know when anything's going to be finished. Please bear with me.
> 
> Thanks,  
> Jez


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